If you can not uninstall Comodo, please read this

[Umesh]

Hi HelpMeOutPlease,
Sorry about that.

Seems serious conflict somewhere.
Can't you login to Safe mode?

May you share version of Comodo Firewall you installed and OS name and version details?
Any other security software installed?

Thanks
-umesh

Decided to try out free firewall this morning, installed, and was asked to restart my pc.

Upon restart  I was immediately locked out of the internet, all my admin rights were removed, I can not reinstall the program, I have no access to the windows control panel, I can not install anything new, I can not uninstall the firewall, I can not delete the registry keys, I can not stop the CmdAgent nor the cmdvirth services from the task manager, I have no access to my network settings, I can not reinstall windows, I can not reformat my hard-drive, I have no more rights to this computer, your software has effectively murdered my pc.

Now it's 8:30 pm and I am exhausted.

[HelpMeOutPlease]

Hi and thank for your reply.

Got a little frazzled and my nerves were shot from troubleshooting into an abyss all day, needed some sleep.

Installer version I used was called mcd_fw_installer_6113_c7.exe

Anyways yes I can get into safe mode. Just got in, was able to uninstall comodo dragon browser. Next I tried to restart the network but I can't seem to start the relevant services. Looks like all my connections were deleted from the place they are usually listed, so I can't get into the properties and delete the firewall driver from there either.

Also in safe mode, I tried to set up a new user account with admin rights but it won't grant them to me. Looked at my existing user profile and it says I am administrator - yet I have none of the corresponding actual rights. Managed to add a new user profile via cmd console - just as locked out on that one.

Can't start any exe's, even in safe mode. I'm writing this from an old win7 machine I managed to hook up to the net, not from the lobotomized win10 machine. I would really appreciate the help if you could guide me through what to do in safe-mode, it's kind of beyond my level of kung-fu.

[HelpMeOutPlease]

The machine that has been eviscerated is an Acer Predator tower i7-7600 32GB ram running windows 10 (home I believe but I can't be 100% sure and there is no way I know of to check) & I was running Avira anti-virus on it. I can not uninstall or stop Avira from running now. I can not recover from a previous system-image. I can not reset to factory defaults.  Hang on.

Hang on. No, After trying a second time, it seems I was able to restore from a previous system image after all. The damage is not fatal. I lost a bunch of 3d renders that took me hours to make, and I will have to reinstall all my programs.

All in all your software only cost me about 15 hours of work to get it the hell off my machine. The work lost with the renders destroyed in the process of doing so is about 20 to 30 hours, not counting artistic value. You came within an inch of doing some serious, and given my current situation, nearly irreperable damage to my life, I rubbish* you not. I am seethingly furious at you in every way imaginable, but happy that it's over and will avoid your products like the bubonic plague.

Judging by the previous posts in this thread, there are other people in line infront of me who might be suffering similarly due to your software. Know that your work can affect a life. You are making it way too easy for yourself with your quite frankly extremely shoddy & dodgy product.

[sanmatross]

Hello friends!
I have to agree with VsUK from this thread that this is a serious problem. And the number of reports seems to keep increasing.

 I encounter almost the same issue for a THIRD time now. Everything started when I tried to uninstall CFW with a third-party uninstaller, which performed CFW leftovers scan and cleanup. After that system took too long to shut down, and when it rebooted, Windows failed to launch at all. All I could see was a blue screen offering boot/restore/diagnostic options, but those options didn't work too -- no system restore, no safe mode boot, no cmd.exe with admin rights as it couldn't find any admin profiles.

This problem happened twice for me, and both times I used third-party uninstallers to cleanup CFW leftovers BEFORE reboot, and I guess this caused the problem. Whatever you guys do, NEVER EVER use third-party uninstallers to uninstall Comodo products. Always use Comodo native uninstall function via Windows Control Panel and reboot, and ONLY AFTER REBOOT perform leftover cleanups.

I cant say what exactly fixed the issue as I performed different tricks: dism health restore, sfc/scannow, some voodoo dancing, and nothing helped. But both times I succeeded to fix the problem I performed bootrec /fixboot, bootrec /fixmbr in cmd.exe and also booted from linux live usb system and copied files from C:/Windows/System32/config/RegBack (which seems to be a registry backup) to C:/Windows/System32/config/ (which seems to be current registry location). And only after that I could access admin profile from boot menu and use system restore point to rollback and only then reinstall CFW.

As the problem seemed to be caused by third-party uninstallers I believed everything will go fine if I don't use them with Comodo products, but this time the issue started after using Virtual desktop. First, reseting sandbox took too long, so i had to shutdown that popup window manually. After that Windows Explorer started loading my CPU, so i relaunched it from Task Manger, but it kept eating CPU, though no active tasks or programs were running. I tried to reboot Windows, but it hang down with black screen for about 10 minutes, so I just forced shutdown with laptop power button. And now Windows doesn't load again. This time it finds administrator profile, but cant find any system restore points, though several restore points were present in my system two days ago.

Aforementioned tricks that formerly fixed the problem do not help anymore as system cant find any restore points. No doubts that Comodo causes the issue. Some guy at Malwaretips forum reported similar result, which he caused intentionally in virtual environment for testing purposes by removing all trusted certificates from CFW Trusted Vendors list (along with those of Microsoft), after that his test system couldn't boot too.

So I guess now the only way out for me is to reinstall Windows and all my programs and reconfigure it all to my preferences, which will take two damn days. Thanks to Comodo for an exciting eventful weekend.

While more or less tech savvy people can find  solutions in some cases, the average user would end-up with a completely nonfunctional machine and would have to bring it to a maintenance workshop. And I believe this happens not only with free products, but payed versions too. How can you guys provide such a buggy software that causes so much damage and even take money for it!?


I made the paragraph structure more clear for an easier read. Eric

[Umesh]

Hi,
We are trying to address this problem and in next major release due in Dec, 2017, in which we will have:
1. System re-store point created before installation and update
2. We will have official uninstaller.

We can't go back in time but hopefully we can provide better experience down the road.

Thanks
-umesh

Hello friends!
I have to agree with VsUK from this thread that this is a serious problem. And the number of reports seems to keep increasing.
 I encounter almost the same issue for a THIRD time now. Everything started when I tried to uninstall CFW with a third-party uninstaller, which performed CFW leftovers scan and cleanup. After that system took too long to shut down, and when it rebooted, Windows failed to launch at all. All I could see was a blue screen offering boot/restore/diagnostic options, but those options didn't work too -- no system restore, no safe mode boot, no cmd.exe with admin rights as it couldn't find any admin profiles.
This problem happened twice for me, and both times I used third-party uninstallers to cleanup CFW leftovers BEFORE reboot, and I guess this caused the problem. Whatever you guys do, NEVER EVER use third-party uninstallers to uninstall Comodo products. Always use Comodo native uninstall function via Windows Control Panel and reboot, and ONLY AFTER REBOOT perform leftover cleanups.
I cant say what exactly fixed the issue as I performed different tricks: dism health restore, sfc/scannow, some voodoo dancing, and nothing helped. But both times I succeeded to fix the problem I performed bootrec /fixboot, bootrec /fixmbr in cmd.exe and also booted from linux live usb system and copied files from C:/Windows/System32/config/RegBack (which seems to be a registry backup) to C:/Windows/System32/config/ (which seems to be current registry location). And only after that I could access admin profile from boot menu and use system restore point to rollback and only then reinstall CFW.
As the problem seemed to be caused by third-party uninstallers I believed everything will go fine if I don't use them with Comodo products, but this time the issue started after using Virtual desktop. First, reseting sandbox took too long, so i had to shutdown that popup window manually. After that Windows Explorer started loading my CPU, so i relaunched it from Task Manger, but it kept eating CPU, though no active tasks or programs were running. I tried to reboot Windows, but it hang down with black screen for about 10 minutes, so I just forced shutdown with laptop power button. And now Windows doesn't load again. This time it finds administrator profile, but cant find any system restore points, though several restore points were present in my system two days ago.
Aforementioned tricks that formerly fixed the problem do not help anymore as system cant find any restore points. No doubts that Comodo causes the issue. Some guy at Malwaretips forum reported similar result, which he caused intentionally in virtual environment for testing purposes by removing all trusted certificates from CFW Trusted Vendors list (along with those of Microsoft), after that his test system couldn't boot too.
So I guess now the only way out for me is to reinstall Windows and all my programs and reconfigure it all to my preferences, which will take two damn days. Thanks to Comodo for an exciting eventful weekend.
While more or less tech savvy people can find  solutions in some cases, the average user would end-up with a completely nonfunctional machine and would have to bring it to a maintenance workshop. And I believe this happens not only with free products, but payed versions too. How can you guys provide such a buggy software that causes so much damage and even take money for it!?

[EricJH]

An easy way to get around the problem of HelpMeOutPlease is to boot into Safe Mode and disable all drivers and services belonging to Avira and CIS. Then boot back into Windows and run the uninstallers for both.

If Avira was already removed go to https://support.eset.com/kb146/?page=content&id=SOLN146 and get the uninstaller of Avira or instructions on how to manually remove left overs.

[sanmatross]

Hi,
We are trying to address this problem and in next major release due in Dec, 2017, in which we will have:
1. System re-store point created before installation and update
2. We will have official uninstaller.

We can't go back in time but hopefully we can provide better experience down the road.

Good to know that developers take the issue into consideration. But as for me, Im not really sure restore point and official uninstaller would fix this particular boot problem. As I mentioned, last time this happened I didn’t try to reinstall or uninstall, but just tried to reset the Container. One thing I should have mentioned is I used maximum restriction level for sandboxed apps in Advanced Settings>Auto-Containment>Run Virtually>Edit>Options>Set Restriction Level>Untrusted. I’m not sure if this impacts Virtual Desktop, but I opened several Explorer windows during Virt Desk session, and Explorer was the first app to demonstrate strange symptoms after Containment reset. So maybe CFW have influenced Explorer behaviour after that.
Anyways, seems like this is some core incompatibility in a product itself, as not only Comodo forum users report boot problems caused by different reasons, but it is also reported by Softpedia staff, who perform numerous test-drives all the time and can’t be called inexperienced users.
I still believe developers will fix this issue soon, so after Windows clean reinstallation I installed CFW again, but will be more careful with it from now. And sorry guys, but if this happens again I`ll have to switch to another security solution, as many people do, I guess.

[iric]

Sent PM days ago, still no answer and still stuck with Comodo that won't uninstall and won't reinstall (it says to uninstall first)

[Umesh]

Hi iric,
For some people removal instructions as presented here have worked.

Please try that that while we come up with official uninstaller in Dec-2017.
If that doesn't work, we can try to work further.

Thanks
-umesh

Sent PM days ago, still no answer and still stuck with Comodo that won't uninstall and won't reinstall (it says to uninstall first)

[iric]

Thanks, the link is broken, if you can fix it I'll try it out.

[futuretech]

Thanks, the link is broken, if you can fix it I'll try it out.

It is fixed now.

[EricJH]

This topic is locked. Comodo has released an official clean up tool. If this tool fails please follow the guidelines in the topic start to file a bug report to help Comodo improve the clean up tool.

If you need help cleaning up you can  follow the instructions in Most Effective Way to Reinstall/Update CIS to Avoid/Fix Problems and when you need further help open a help topic in this board.